‘The Jinx’s Robert Durst Sentenced To Seven Years In Prison On Gun Chargevia Deadline

A federal judge in New Orleans has formally sentenced real estate magnate Robert Durst to 85 months in prison, followed by three years’ supervised release, for weapons possession.

U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt today approved the sentence that was agreed to as part of a plea deal reached in February on the felony charge. Durst, whose long-suspected involvement in several murders chronicled in HBO’s documentary The Jinx led to his arrest, also was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and $100 special assessment.

But the legal saga is not over for Durst, who still faces a murder charge in Los Angeles for the killing of Susan Berman. Durst has insisted he’s innocent.

A loaded .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver was found in March 2015 during a lawful search of Durst’s New Orleans hotel room after an arrest warrant was issued for the Berman killing. Having previously been convicted of multiple felonies, Durst was indicted in the Eastern District of Louisiana on April 10, 2015, for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Robert Durst—the millionaire former fugitive who’s currently on trial for one of several murders he’s been linked to over the course of his life—has said he was on methamphetamine during the filming of The Jinx, the hit HBO docu-series that brought him to national attention. “I was on meth, I was on meth the whole time…it should have been obvious,” Durst said in a 2015 interview with prosecutors, the transcript of which was filed in a Los Angeles court yesterday. “I think the reason I did it had to be because I was swooped, speeding.” (Durst’s lawyers have previously said that he was “tricked” into doing the show.)

Along with Serial, The Jinx helped kick off pop culture’s current wave of true-crime obsession. The series’ pivotal moment comes in its final episode, when Durst is caught muttering into a hot microphone, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” Durst was arrested for murder the day before that episode aired, but has since plead not guilty, presumably on the grounds that “Killed them all, of course” is just the “Have a nice day, friend!” of meth users everywhere.

The witness also testified that Durst told her he liked the movie “All Good Things,” in which actor Ryan Gosling plays a fictionalized version of Durst. The film character is strongly implicated in the murders of three people and a dog. Asked by Lewin if Durst ever complained about inaccuracies in the film, Altman said the depiction of his treatment of the dog upset him.